After seeing all those odd and awkward design choices depicted in the product photos, it actually cheered me up to see Gypsy, Crow, and Tom Servo -- three examples of good design which have stood the test of time. I'm not even kidding about that; the VAIO was really depressing me and the bots made me feel less unhappy...just as they always did while commenting on a bad movie.

As a former Sony laptop owner, if I may inject a note of caution - Sony is absolutely terrible at releasing driver and firmware updates for it's laptops. If they bother to release any at all, it is more than likely to be poor quality bloatware variety.

I have a Sony S Series top of the line i7 (Ivy Bridge), 8GB, SSD fully loaded that I paid around $1800.

Bought direct from Sony in Jan 2012 about eight months(?) before Windows 8 release. The device came with Windows 7 Pro and I was able to use Microsoft's $14 upgrade offer to get Win 8.

So far so good.

Except Sony made such pathetic attempt at Win 8 drivers for the laptop. Check the Sony Owners thread at notebookforums.com to see the hoops users have to go through to make their fairly new devices work with Windows 8. Crappy insecure workaounds, having to strip drivers from other manufacturers and make your own MSI installers just to get stuff like display brightness buttons and fan speed regulators work. Not to mention the graphics drivers have not been updated in 18months. Sony completed shafted it's users.

And this was a 8 month old $1800 laptop from their premium range.

So I urge anyone thinking of buying a Sony computer - think ten times before you buy because these bastards will fuck you good and proper.

All of these terrible designs are driven by Microsoft's decision that Windows must be all things to all people. Instead of having the same core OS with different UIs on top for entirely different use cases (as Apple did with OS X and iOS), Steve Ballmer made the marketing decision that the Windows brand had to be everywhere. That one decision — and the decision that it was going to be the SAME Windows as much as possible — is what's driving these bad compromises.

I feel sorry for the companies which came to depend on Microsoft for their software. Now that Microsoft has made a bad decision (which is for its own purposes, not for customers or hardware partners), the companies are stuck with the decision. That's what happens when you don't control the entire widget. You're at the mercy of someone else's bad decisions.

I'm glad you mentioned fan speed and noise. I have had a Sony VAIO Vpcf1 for a few years now that I absolutely love except for the ridiculous fan. It is obnoxiously loud and will fire up when the laptop screen is closed and no programs running. Now its getting to the point where I'm starting to look for a new laptop. It looks like Sony just has issues with their fans.

Pardon me if I missed the price; my eyes tend to glaze over whenever I read of these "must-have" fad devices which one MUST be seen with in order to be a part of the "in' crowd.

I asume that this is priced somewhere in the range of $800 to $1500.For that kind of price, I expect to be able to get some SERIOUS computing capability.Totally forgetting about all the other 'dumb-downs' to accomodate the 'in' crowd who don't even know what they don't have (but which DO--amazingly-- save the manufacturers GOBS of money)...

Where's the Ethernet port on this seriously-priced, seriously under-performing "computing" machine?("Duh, like, man, what's an eithermet port and why would I even care?")

One more paper cut, or a case of Sony, et al, blowing away the airheads who are the device's target market?****************************************************************

Man, did I call this one ABSOLUTELY correctly.

A mere TWELVE HOURS after posting, and already twenty-two (that's "22', to all you artificial intelligentia) down-votes (it increased from 19 to 22 while I was editing this!)My only regret is that Ars will invoke the 'invisibility cloak" after a while, and then we'll never have an idea of just how many of Ars' readers are members of the air-head, no-nothing, comic-book-reading 'in-crowd'.

Bias disclaimer: I bought a Duo 11 on release day, and while it's got some flaws, I really like it.

That said, I think anyone who buys a Flip 13 instead of a Duo 13 is doing a themselves a disservice. The upsides are obvious: 8-10 hour battery life and unimpeachable solidity (both of the keyboard tray when in laptop mode and the entire unit in tablet mode). As for the downsides...unlike the Duo 11, it's got a larger keyboard and a traditional trackpad. Perhaps more importantly, the longer you live with the Duo 11, the less you think about how much different it is from your expectations of a laptop. You get used to not having a wrist rest--not in the first day, not on the first week (as long as reviewers have test units), but assure you, after a month or so of regular use, I simply didn't think about it anymore. And once I acclimated to the different form factor and the feel/size of the keyboard, I found I could type just as fast as on any other keyboard.

So if you want a 13" Sony convertible, get the Duo. The Duo 13 kicks the Flip 13 around the block once you get used to a form factor that doesn't match most people's expectations. It looks different, but it's going to be a lot better to live with long-term.

EDIT: My Duo 11 has less fan noise than any other laptop I've owned. If the Duo 13 is the same, that's another big advantage. The slider form gives lots of room for ventilation (on the back of the laptop/top of the tablet) compared to a normal ultraportable laptop.

All of these terrible designs are driven by Microsoft's decision that Windows must be all things to all people. Instead of having the same core OS with different UIs on top for entirely different use cases (as Apple did with OS X and iOS), Steve Ballmer made the marketing decision that the Windows brand had to be everywhere. That one decision — and the decision that it was going to be the SAME Windows as much as possible — is what's driving these bad compromises.

I can have the same software and the same documents on my device whether I'm using it as a laptop or a tablet at that particular moment. That's FANTASTIC. I can be walking around using it as a tablet consuming content and then get an idea, sit down, deploy the keyboard in a single motion, and start creating content with the very same programs and windows already open. If I owned an iPad and a MacBook Air instead of a Duo 11, I'd need to get two copies of software (or find an equivalent piece of software for OSX software that isn't available on iOS) and I'd need to worry about syncing documents between the two devices. In my opinion, the user experience is better with a single convertible device. Maybe it's not the right solution for everyone, but it's the right solution for me and a good number of other people.

Microsoft's "Surface Pro" is still the one to beat, and this does not do it.

Are you serious? It's swirling around the drain too!

The Surface Pro is a good unit. Solidly built, nice features and easy to use. Battery power being my only real issue with it, that could be better. The PRO 2 looks to have fixed that feature and the back lighting on the new keyboards are a nice addition. I think my only complaint about the PRO 2 is going to be that if you get one with every addition that it will cost far too much.

As a large stationary laptop, I prefer the Acer R. The touchpad positioning means nothing to me because I never use touchpads, ever. I always have a mouse and my bag carries ms's bendy mouse as well.

I had q chance to try both these machines and was nicely surprised how much more useful the Acer R was as a desktop tool with its ability to adjust screen placement. As cool as the Sony is, I'm not really going to use a 13 or 15" device for tablet work.

All of these terrible designs are driven by Microsoft's decision that Windows must be all things to all people. Instead of having the same core OS with different UIs on top for entirely different use cases (as Apple did with OS X and iOS), Steve Ballmer made the marketing decision that the Windows brand had to be everywhere. That one decision — and the decision that it was going to be the SAME Windows as much as possible — is what's driving these bad compromises.

I feel sorry for the companies which came to depend on Microsoft for their software. Now that Microsoft has made a bad decision (which is for its own purposes, not for customers or hardware partners), the companies are stuck with the decision. That's what happens when you don't control the entire widget. You're at the mercy of someone else's bad decisions.

there is nothing terrible in these designs. You can opt to use the design feature or not. In this laptop's case, you can just use it as a laptop. There is nothing in the design from Sony or Ms hat affects its ability to work as a laptop, as designed.

my comment above says I find some other designs more useful. Even if you disregard the flip display of the Sony, at the very least, it makes for a bangin presentation tool.

your assertion that MS's software forced OEM to create these devices is a daft one. It allows these form factors. You can still make, build and buy laptops that are just laptops yet running windows 8. There is nothing in windows that forces a hybrid device.

perhaps if you're hell bent to discredit the OS and MS, find a more plausible angle. The one you approach from is easily made invalid.

Microsoft's "Surface Pro" is still the one to beat, and this does not do it.

Are you serious? It's swirling around the drain too!

if you equate sales to quality and functionality, then yes it's circling the drain. However, how well a device does on the market doesn't necessarily mean it is a poor device. For all intents and purposes, it's a very good device outside battery life.

perhaps to someone who just needs basic computing it can be seen as a monstrous hybrid. To someone like me who is a photographer, illustrator and designer, the Pro is a fantastic device allowing me to travel lighter and allowing me a use case that a full laptop can't offer.

the other day I went to meet my wife for coffee and left my pro tablet at home. Incidentally I got a call from a client asking for their logo to be resized and placed on a square frame. It was an urgent request and I was in transit. I tried to use my phones. Couldn't be done. I tried to use my surface RT and it could be done but with considerable effort and fuddling about in Paint! It took me nearly an hour to do it properly.

had I had my pro with me, I could have whipped it out, woke it up and churned that task out in under 1 minutes from a standing position on the train. That was how simple the task was. What made the task difficult was my situation in transit and no real basic editing application.

taking out my pro and whipping out a quick edit is something I do often that simply isn't doable with full laptops (go ahead and try to work on your laptop while standing or walking) and is difficult to do with dedicated tablets. The faster I get the requests out of my way, the more time I have to enjoy my night out.

So what about the crapware? Last I checked (admittedly, 3 years ago now), Sony loaded their PCs with near a metric butt-ton of crapware and proprietary crapware that took quite some doing to clean out (if you could even get all of it). That, coupled with the price bump you have to pay just for the Sony name made me decide never to purchase a Sony computer.

. o O (The ones I HAVE used have all been either hand-me-downs, other people's purchases, or work PCs.)

So what about the crapware? Last I checked (admittedly, 3 years ago now), Sony loaded their PCs with near a metric butt-ton of crapware and proprietary crapware that took quite some doing to clean out (if you could even get all of it). That, coupled with the price bump you have to pay just for the Sony name made me decide never to purchase a Sony computer.

. o O (The ones I HAVE used have all been either hand-me-downs, other people's purchases, or work PCs.)

They've scaled back on bloat dramatically in recent years. I have a Vaio F23 (2011) and a Duo 11 (2012) and both were quite modest in terms of bloatware, not bad at all.

As for pricing, once again, that's not an issue anymore. My F23 cost $1250 in 2011...pretty good for a quad-core CPU, a midrange Nvidia GPU, and a 1080p matte screen. Pricing more like an XPS 17 than a MBP 17. And my Duo 11 cost $1099; it was very competitively priced with other first-gen Win8 convertibles like the Dell XPS 12. The pricing of the Flip 13 is a bit of a mystery to me, as the Flip 14 and Flip 15 start at $750 and $800 as per Engadget's review of the 15. But still, it costs $100 less than a MBA 13; it's not like we're dealing with an unheard-of price point for an ultraportable.

I understand this sentiment but I applaud Sony for attempting to try something a bit different. If all manufacturers kept making the same as what currently worked we'd never really get the next big thing.

I understand this sentiment but I applaud Sony for attempting to try something a bit different. If all manufacturers kept making the same as what currently worked we'd never really get the next big thing.

I'd rather have innovation based off more solid research and testing than the current crop of experiments suggest. Seriously, do they even dog food their own hardware? How do the crappy touchpads keep making it into release hardware?

Gah, a tablet device larger than 10" (actually more like 8-9" personally) is just not very useful, other than for propping up on a table for watching a movie. You either get gorilla arm from trying to hold the tablet up, or neck problems from looking down, or a different type of gorilla arm from propping it on a table and trying to hold your arms up to touch the screen. And a laptop with a 10" or smaller screen is just too small to be very useful.

My prediction: tablets larger than 9-10 inches will never be truly popular. Laptops smaller than 11.6 inches will never be truly popular. Note the non-overlap, and get over it. Laptops and tablets are mutually exclusive types of devices.

My prediction: tablets larger than 9-10 inches will never be truly popular. Laptops smaller than 11.6 inches will never be truly popular. Note the non-overlap, and get over it. Laptops and tablets are mutually exclusive types of devices.

While I personally agree with you, there is obviously people out there that think differently and one of the advantages of the free market economy is that even small minorities might get served with goods they desire.

All of these terrible designs are driven by Microsoft's decision that Windows must be all things to all people. Instead of having the same core OS with different UIs on top for entirely different use cases (as Apple did with OS X and iOS), Steve Ballmer made the marketing decision that the Windows brand had to be everywhere. That one decision — and the decision that it was going to be the SAME Windows as much as possible — is what's driving these bad compromises.

I feel sorry for the companies which came to depend on Microsoft for their software. Now that Microsoft has made a bad decision (which is for its own purposes, not for customers or hardware partners), the companies are stuck with the decision. That's what happens when you don't control the entire widget. You're at the mercy of someone else's bad decisions.

While I personally regard Windows 8 as an abomination, it's the OEM responsability to ensure that their products actually make sense. There's nothing preventing them from selling classic, traditional non-touch screen laptops as they've always had in the past, regardless of all touch features bundled on Windows 8. They're free even to include a start menu replacement if they so desire. Imagine that, a piece of software included by the OEM that users actually would find useful!

If they're choosing to manufacture all these hybrids in the hope of finding a niche for themselves and adding touch screens to laptops that do little more than causing a price increase instead, well, that's on them. They're the ones legitimizing Windows 8 hybrid (abhorrent, IMO) design if only by trying.

The "problem" with this hinge design is that it takes up a fair bit of space on the Z axis. But look how easy it would be to go from tablet to notebook PC. Just push up on the screen and go. No screwing around with flips, turns or spins. Might be a little more difficult to adjust the screen tilt, but I'll bet there's a way to fix that too.

The "problem" with this hinge design is that it takes up a fair bit of space on the Z axis. But look how easy it would be to go from tablet to notebook PC. Just push up on the screen and go. No screwing around with flips, turns or spins. Might be a little more difficult to adjust the screen tilt, but I'll bet there's a way to fix that too.

The Sony Vaio Duo models use a design like that, and haven't been reviewed very well. Finicky lifting systems, cramped trackpads.

The Dell XPS 12 and Yoga's are very sturdy and have none of these compromises, except a little extra thickness and weight.

Isn't that grainy look of the screen caused by the optional integrated screen protector? It seems odd that only this laptop would suffer from this issue when other sony laptops with pen support don't suffer from it.

Gah, a tablet device larger than 10" (actually more like 8-9" personally) is just not very useful, other than for propping up on a table for watching a movie. You either get gorilla arm from trying to hold the tablet up, or neck problems from looking down, or a different type of gorilla arm from propping it on a table and trying to hold your arms up to touch the screen. And a laptop with a 10" or smaller screen is just too small to be very useful.

My prediction: tablets larger than 9-10 inches will never be truly popular. Laptops smaller than 11.6 inches will never be truly popular. Note the non-overlap, and get over it. Laptops and tablets are mutually exclusive types of devices.

I disagree with your sentiment, but maybe I'm weird in how I use my 10" tablet that I wouldn't mind it being larger. Checking the news/scores, weather, music, reading, videos, gaming - all work well in my lap or on the table/counter. Maybe my neck and arms are still good or something. Most people use tablets to consume content or browse the web, how would this not be helped by being slightly larger while not making it any more difficult to carry around. It already doesn't fit in your pocket, so you're either carrying it in a bag or holding it anyway.

I also think notebooks and tablets will overlap in the near future, like next holiday season or right after when I'm hoping to upgrade my ultrabook and Nexus10 for a 13" tablet that can plug into a keyboard dock that has a more powerful cpu, gpu and extra ram, that on it's own can function as a desktop.

Basically - a Skylake laptop/keyboard dock, with a Willowtrail or A57 tablet where the keyboard dock can be used as a desktop via displayport/hdmi when not attached to the tablet.

Then maybe a few years after that phones will be powerful enough to turn laptops/desktops into monitors and input devices all driven by your phone.. maybe..

The Sony Vaio Duo models use a design like that, and haven't been reviewed very well. Finicky lifting systems, cramped trackpads.

The Dell XPS 12 and Yoga's are very sturdy and have none of these compromises, except a little extra thickness and weight.

The Duo 13 got an 89% review from NotebookCheck.net (very positive by their standards) and also got a very positive review from Engadget (who felt the keyboard was much improved over the Duo 11 and marveled at the 9.5 hours of battery life).. The negative reviews were primarily of the Duo 11, which despite having solid build quality and a great screen, had an undersize keyboard, 4.5 hours of battery life, and a poorly-configured trackpoint instead of a traditional trackpad.

The "finnicky lifting system" of the Duo sliders is faster to deploy and retract the keyboard than either the Yoga hinge or the swivel-and-fold motion used by the XPS 12 and the Vaio Flip. The Duo's conversion is just one smooth single motion to deploy or constrict. It may not be what people are used to, but in my experience once you acclimate to it, it works wonderfully.

Jeez. I really, really like a ton of Sony consumer electronics, my Vita and PS3 are great. my old Discman used to get practically 30 hours off of a couple of AA batteries (back when that was still completely mythical battery life), I like some of their phones...but god damn they make shitty laptops. I'll be honest, I'd strongly consider buying something like this for around $450 as a personal "goofing around" laptop that adapts to a bunch of different tasks, but not at the prices Sony seems to think it can get away with charging.

Bias disclaimer: I bought a Duo 11 on release day, and while it's got some flaws, I really like it.

That said, I think anyone who buys a Flip 13 instead of a Duo 13 is doing a themselves a disservice. The upsides are obvious: 8-10 hour battery life and unimpeachable solidity (both of the keyboard tray when in laptop mode and the entire unit in tablet mode). As for the downsides...unlike the Duo 11, it's got a larger keyboard and a traditional trackpad. Perhaps more importantly, the longer you live with the Duo 11, the less you think about how much different it is from your expectations of a laptop. You get used to not having a wrist rest--not in the first day, not on the first week (as long as reviewers have test units), but assure you, after a month or so of regular use, I simply didn't think about it anymore. And once I acclimated to the different form factor and the feel/size of the keyboard, I found I could type just as fast as on any other keyboard.

So if you want a 13" Sony convertible, get the Duo. The Duo 13 kicks the Flip 13 around the block once you get used to a form factor that doesn't match most people's expectations. It looks different, but it's going to be a lot better to live with long-term.

EDIT: My Duo 11 has less fan noise than any other laptop I've owned. If the Duo 13 is the same, that's another big advantage. The slider form gives lots of room for ventilation (on the back of the laptop/top of the tablet) compared to a normal ultraportable laptop.

I was surprised about the complaint about fan noise. But that's because I always have my 1st gen Duo 11 set to run "silently". It doesn't run that hot even though the fan rarely spins up, so I don't find myself putting the fan on often. But if you open the Vaio Control Center program, it lets you set different fan profiles, which can mitigate that issue.

For those concerned about the price, note that the Flip 13 seems to be unusually expensive compared to the Flip 14. If you go on Sony's page, you can get a Flip 14 with Haswell i3 and hybrid hard drive for $849, or Haswell i3 and 128 gb SSD for $979. (You can also get it with a Pentium and a traditional HHD for $749...I wouldn't choose that model, but if you don't care about processor, that's a great price for a 1080p touchscreen convertible tablet).

The "finnicky lifting system" of the Duo sliders is faster to deploy and retract the keyboard than either the Yoga hinge or the swivel-and-fold motion used by the XPS 12 and the Vaio Flip. The Duo's conversion is just one smooth single motion to deploy or constrict. It may not be what people are used to, but in my experience once you acclimate to it, it works wonderfully.

And in my experience, people fawn over it when they see it in action. It's not uncommon for me to have people come up to me and ask about my computer when I'm using it to do some work or a quick tablet game in a public place. Usually people end up asking me how much it costed, where I got it, and they leave with a desire to get one too.